Juvenile Offender Cases Supporting the Special Rapporteur’s March 2013 Report

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This supplement provides documented cases of detained juvenile offenders that served as the basis of Dr. Shaheed’s March 2013 report presented to the UN Human Rights Council. The documentation is based on primary interviews and secondary research conducted for the March 2013 report (Click here for the full report supplement).

Report Supplement

February 28, 2013

II. Juvenile Offenders

15. In February 2002, Ali Torabi was arrested at 16 years old for the murder of a fellow classmate during a fight at school. Mr. Torabi reported that during his detention he was denied access to a lawyer and family, and subjected to extreme violence and torture. He reported that he was placed in solitary confinement, flogged, hung from a ceiling, exposed to freezing weather while naked, and that his interrogators would place a portable kerosene stove under his chair and would increase the heat in order to get him to write confessions faster. Mr. Torabi was tried, found guilty, and given the death penalty, despite being a minor at the time of arrest. He was then transferred to a general ward of Rajai Shahr Prison, where he claimed his abuse continued, including beatings and being shocked with electric batons. He was eventually released on bail after being imprisoned for over seven years. He has since left Iran; his final judicial ruling is Qisas for the crime of murder, for which the execution sentence remains in place.

16. Siyamak M. was arrested in August 2009 in Shiraz during the 2009 summer protests. He was 17 at the time of arrest, and charged with “assembly and collusion against public order”. He reported that he was pepper sprayed, handcuffed, and taken to Mahfase e-Khalilie (a Ministry of Intelligence office). He maintained that he was beaten while blindfolded. Mr. M. claimed that authorities interrogated him for a week about his Dervish background – inquiring if his community had sent him to protest – and that he was never allowed to see a judge, was never informed of his charges, and did not have access to a lawyer. He further reported that he was detained in what he believed was a military prison, and placed in a juvenile ward. He was released on bail after one month, against the deed to his family’s house. A few weeks later, he was informed of his charges of “assembly and collusion against public order”. Mr. M. reported that his lawyer was also eventually arrested in July 2010. Mr. M. left the country in 2010.